


Fighting the Darkness

by HappyPupp



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Day 5: Sleeping, Swan Queen Week Summer 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:24:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyPupp/pseuds/HappyPupp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing new, just a title change</p><p>//</p><p>I started writing this, and then it fit in with the Swan Queen Week prompt of sleep, which motivated me to actually see it through to an end. </p><p>Basically, Emma is alone, struggling with being the Dark One, and Regina keeps summoning her in her sleep. Emma POV. </p><p>//</p><p>“Emma Swan! Emma Swan! Emma Swan!” </p><p>Emma feels the now familiar pull, and suddenly she finds herself in the corner of a dark room. </p><p>She’s been here so many times now, Regina reluctant to try to force her presence in anything but her sleep, and then not able to at all once the dreaming starts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fighting the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Set post 4B season finale. Canon-divergent from there, albeit somewhat inspired by dialogue from season 5. Mentions Robin, but he’s out of there pretty quickly. Don’t really know what happened with Hook. 
> 
> Also, Regina is the one with the dagger. Because that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. 
> 
> I think I’ve left a whole lot of things unsaid, maybe because I haven’t found a way to describe them without it being dull, or very descriptive, but also because knowing Swen, a lot of things don’t need to be said for you to understand.
> 
> I don’t own these characters, I just take them out of their TV closet to play with them. Any mistakes, however, are my own. No profits are being made. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, feedback is highly appreciated!

“Emma Swan! Emma Swan! Emma Swan!”

 

Emma feels the now familiar pull, and suddenly she finds herself in the corner of a dark room.

 

She’s been here so many times now, Regina reluctant to try to force her presence in anything but her sleep, and then not able to at all once the dreaming starts.

 

She sits down the chair she has come to think of as hers, watching as Regina twist and turn in her nightmare, at times murmuring something incoherent. At times repeating Emma’s name.

 

Emma curls herself up, fights her own nightmare, the darkness swirling inside, tugging hard on her instincts. She’s supposed to be good, she’s supposed to be pure, but Emma knows she never truly was. Right and wrong wasn’t always an issue when the real question in Emma’s life was _surviving_. And nobody ever cared about Emma, so Emma never saw a reason why she should care? And now that urge to just be careless again, to do whatever the hell pleases her, consequences be damned? Well, it feels _damn good_.

 

But she tries, she really tries, because she is no longer Emma Swan, orphan, lost girl, unwanted foster kid. No, she’s Emma Swan, fairy tale princess, mother, child, the _Savior_. Not caring about anything is no longer in her job description, no matter how bitter the taste of that truth feels in her mouth these days.

 

So Emma tries the best she can to control the darkness, and the only way she knows how to do that is by isolating herself. And she knows that this, her disappearance, is part of what haunts Regina at night. It pains her to watch Regina’s struggle, it really does. It makes her lower her head down to her knees, only barely able to still see Regina, and sometimes even lower because she’s no longer able to watch, the grief overwhelming her. She knows that Regina and the rest of her family are looking for her and trying to find a way to help her get rid of the darkness for good. She knows that fighting Emma’s darkness is making Regina step way out of her comfort zone to be the savior that Emma herself now needs. She knows that not getting anywhere is just as agonizing to Regina as it is to herself.

 

But it also feels a whole lot easier being the Dark One here in this room, in the dark, with a sleeping Regina a few feet away. Because Regina, too, knows the lure of the darkness and wouldn’t judge her even if she was awake. Knowing Regina, she would probably call her out on it whenever she is acting stupid, but never actually _judge_.

 

But Regina isn’t awake, she is sleeping, and Emma gets to just _be_ in the presence of another human being, if only for a short period of time.

 

-

 

The first time it happened, Robin was there, sleeping next to Regina. Emma had watched Regina toss and turn from a distance, unable to believe that she was there, in Regina’s bedroom. And unable to reach out to her, even though she wanted to go to her, to touch her, if not to wake her, then at least to calm her dreams.

 

But Robin had been there, and she hadn’t dared approach the bed. It hadn’t taken long before Regina’s stirrings had woken Robin, either, and then Emma had disappeared in to a cloud of smoke that was no longer golden white, but grey, almost purple-ish.

 

-

 

Robin hasn’t been here in a while.

 

-

 

This time when she appears in Regina’s bedroom, it’s not because Regina’s voice is calling her. No, if anything, it's the lack of it. It's been more than a week since the last time Regina dreamt about her, at least enough to call out her name. And even tough Emma has a hard time admitting it to herself, she misses it.  
  
Being the Dark One is making Emma go slightly crazy in it self. But this week has been particularly hard on Emma, and she knows it has to do with the fact that she hasn't seen Regina. She realizes that even in her sleep, Regina is her anchor. Her reminder to not let darkness overcome her, because Regina herself is a living example on how badly that might turn out. Because Regina, once the Evil Queen, is doing everything in her power to save Emma from that same fate, that fate of becoming a monster, and Emma will not let her and the rest of her family down.  
  
But this week without Regina has made Emma question everything about herself. It has made her dark and desperate and there might be some serious damage in the woods, but she doesn't think she has hurt any living beings accept the trees and the forest grass. Yet.  
  
She realizes that Regina is her light in this darkness, and she goes to Regina's bedroom even if she hasn't been called. This time, when she curls up in the chair, she cries. Silent, heavy tears. The tears are sad, angry, frustrated, desperate, lonely, tired, hurt, all these things that Emma has been feeling, but has not let her self let out. They fall here in Regina's bedroom, which has come to be her sanctuary. She feels her self let go of her need to be good and strong for everybody and just lets herself be weak for a moment here with Regina.  
  
Because Regina knows her, understands her, gets her. And Emma needs her.  
  
And Emma just can't help it, she lets out a sob of overwhelming emotions, a chocked breath that forces itself out of her chest and into the quiet of Regina’s bedroom. And Regina stirs.  
  
Emma didn't know she could tense up so quickly, but she does. And she lets herself disappear into that silver-grey-purple smoke once more. Still, she hears it as she slips away from the room. The sound of Regina's sleephusked, confused, but hopeful voice. "Emma?"

 

Emma is gone before Regina truly awakes.

 

-

 

Emma regrets going there more than she thought was humanly possible. Then again, is she really human now? She’s the Dark One, she thinks, and it sort of amplifies everything, but it shouldn’t amplify regret, should it? The Dark One shouldn’t regret anything? But then again, going to Regina without being called for had been Emma’s own decision, not the Dark One’s. And it’s Emma’s regret that the Dark One latches on to and makes her feel more intensely than anything.

 

She regrets it, because now her visits to Regina become a lot more frequent.

 

Regina doesn’t sleep much after Emma’s visit. Perhaps because she felt Emma’s presence, has felt a tiny flicker of hope in all the darkness surrounding them, because now she becomes relentless, not letting herself rest, always going through some piece of information, reading and re-reading to make sure she hasn’t missed anything, going through everything once more, searching, searching, searching.

 

But exhaustion has a way of overcoming stubbornness, and Emma finds that Regina now never falls asleep in her own bed, never in a comfortable position, never in a manner where it’s clear that she has let her self relax, if only just for a moment. No, it’s always still mid-search, bent over some books or collapsed in a chair, shards of glass surrounding her, proof of her frustration of getting nowhere, no matter how hard she tries.

 

And always when this happens, when no amount of coffee could help Regina in the fight against fluttering eyelids, she dreams. Because she is still restless, still searching, and she keeps calling out for Emma.

 

“Emma Swan!”

 

“Emma Swan!”

 

“Emma Swan!”

 

-

 

Emma knows she shouldn’t interfere, knows she needs to stay away for her own good, but she just _can’t._ Not anymore. Because this time, she finds Regina in the same clothes she was wearing the last time her body couldn’t take anymore (about two-there days ago), her skin ashen in color except for the purple under her eyes, her cheeks hollow, leaning uncomfortably over the table, a ancient rune book as her current pillow, limbs twitching as she screams out Emma’s name, and Emma just can’t take it anymore. She calls out her magic, transports the both of them back to the security that is Regina’s bedroom, leaving a magically cleaned and changed Regina in her own bed for the first time since that night. She sweeps her hand briefly over Regina’s forehead, not letting herself actually touch this woman that is killing herself to help her, but touching her with a burst of magic instead, altering her dreams to something pleasant, some memory of Henry’s childhood the both of them now share, and enhancing the sleep so that it will actually last her some desperately needed hours. Regina will know, will understand that this is Emma’s doing, but Emma doesn’t care in this moment. All she cares about is giving Regina this moment of relief. All she cares about is this feeling inside her as she watches Regina sleep peacefully for once. It feels an awful lot like serenity.

 

-

 

“Emma Swan! Emma Swan! Emma Swan!”

 

She should have known it wouldn’t last. Or, she did know, but she had thought it would have lasted longer than until the morning.

 

But then, when the smoke clears, Regina isn’t sleeping. No, Regina is standing there with the dagger clutched in both her outstretched hands, so hard blood is slowly running down its tip. She looks furious, desperate, enraged, but, Emma notices, also a whole lot more well-rested than yesterday.

 

“Regina…”, she sighs out, because she knows, she understands, she gets her fury.

 

“No, you don’t get to talk!” Regina interrupts her, voice bristling with emotion. “You’ve been right here all along! We’ve been looking for you, for any signs of life, for just a straw of hope to cling onto to know that you were still alive! We’ve exhausted every opportunity, we’ve done everything we could think of, we’ve exhausted ourselves! And you, you have been _right here all the time?!_ ” Regina is _fuming_.

 

Emma can’t stop herself from moving forwards regardless of Regina’s mood. Her mind manages to think that if Regina kills her, then she becomes the Dark One after all, and it will all have been in vain. But in this moment Emma doesn’t care. Or maybe it’s Regina who doesn’t care, she is holding the dagger after all, and maybe Emma’s not moving all on her own accord. Emma doesn’t know, but she continues to walk towards Regina, who is all anger and frustration and tears and keeps repeating “No!”, but she’s not actually stopping her, and suddenly, Emma’s arms are wrapped around Regina’s body, she can here the clung of the dagger as it hits the floor, and they both whisper each others names as they cling to one another as if they’re never letting go. And maybe they aren’t, because the next thing Emma knows, Regina’s hands are cupping her face and she’s looking into Regina’s wonderful, sparkling (with what?), searching eyes, and she’s sighing out an “Emma! You’re here!” like she can’t believe it, like Emma had just been another dream, and then they’re kissing, and it feels an awful lot like meant to be.

 

-

 

And Emma now knows that there is only one way to fight the darkness.

 

Together.


End file.
